6/10/08

Post #50! Yesssss! I feel like I should be taking a knee in the endzone! Half of a hundred posts of complete rambling since April. This is a pretty special moment; if I could, I'd pass out cake and noisemakers to everyone who didn't shut me off by post #2.

Thanks for reading, y'all. ;o)

So here's the inspirational gem that has me tickin' today:

"God doesn't have any grandchildren. There is no such thing as a second-generation Christian. The battle of faith must be fought alone, again and again, each time as if it were the first." - Michael Pearl

This is one of those so-simple-it-should-be-painfully-obvious things. I know, I know - you probably already get this. Maybe today's post is just for me. But still, this simple little truth hits home today.

I'm grateful for rich, established heritages. I'm happy for those precious Christians who can point to great-great-great-great grandparents who raised their families to love Jesus and follow His word; I don't say this deceptively, with malice hidden in my heart. Truly, it's wonderful!

But that's not my story.

My parents came to love Jesus on their own. Not because their families walked in the truth, but because they were seeking something more. They raised their family in the truth, set apart from loved ones who didn't see eye-to-eye with their new viewpoint.

It's new for our family. We're doing this because we're seeking truth daily; it wasn't a way of life throughout our bloodline.

I've been blessed to meet some of these super-celebrity Christians, and as kind and selfless as many of them may be, it's still easy to feel inferior because I don't have a famous, super-holy surname.

For real - who doesn't love having a backstage pass to Christianity?!

Clearly, these Christian versions of the Rockefellers and Hiltons have trials. It wouldn't be life without a few crazy things thrown into the mix. That doesn't change because they have celebrity, best-friend-to-the-big-G status.

But they're also reaping the blessings of godly great-great-great-grandparents who prayed anointing and blessings over their families.

Good news for the rest of us, though; that's not getting anyone a golden ticket into the pearly gates.

We start out in this on the same level. We're newbies. We all get one life, a full energy bar, and ample opportunities to pick up spotted mushrooms with truth and knowledge bundled inside.

Here's what the Bible says about my responsibility to pursue my own salvation, regardless of my granddaddy's choices;

"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Phil. 2:12b-13

He's working in me, on a personal, individual level. Not because He just happens to be in the neighborhood visiting my momma, not because my mawmaw prayed that He's stop by and drop a little blessing on me, but because He is calling me.

"But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted." 1 Peter 2:9-10

Whether you're steeped in heritage or you're seeking truth on your own, you are called to Him. You're marked as His child, you're showered in His love, and you can hold your head up in the presence of the most pedigreed Christians in the world.

Keep walkin'. Your destiny is just as important to Jesus as that of any other Christian, and future generations will reap blessings because you're sowing them.

[as inappropriate as this may seem, I really, REALLY want to bust out into 'a-walk it out, walk it out' a la Jesse McCartney. Therefore, I will stop now. Because you really don't want to see me bustin' that move, trust me.]